Port of Oakland extends nighttime operations

SSA Marine’s Oakland International Container Terminal, which has operated nights and Saturdays for two months to ease pressure on busy weekday cargo operations, will stay open three nights a week in a during a four-week trial.    The Port of Oakland will extend a subsidy program to stimulate night and weekend business, according to a statement from the port.
   The Northern California port in February committed to spend up to $1.5 million to help offset the added cost of terminals operating at night for a program that was due to expire this week, but with only about two-thirds of the fund consumed decided to extend the program through the end of June or until the money is  exhausted.
    SSA Marine’s Oakland International Container Terminal (OICT), which handles 67 percent of Oakland’s cargo, said it will tap the fund immediately. The terminal has operated nights and Saturdays for two months to ease pressure on busy weekday cargo operations and has been handling 600 transactions at night and 1,200 on Saturdays. Now it intends to conduct additional nighttime transactions Tuesdays-through-Thursdays, 6 p.m. to 3 a.m., during a four-week trial.
   Traditionally the port is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but Port of Oakland executive director Chris Lytle said
   “The old way doesn’t work any longer,” Lytle said of the nighttime program. “There’s too much business; we have to stay open longer to get cargo in and out of Oakland.”
   The port has been open at night for refrigerated cargo, for pick-up of large numbers of containers using an express “free-flow program” and for pick-up of containers on chassis, but starting May 10, the terminal will also be open at night for shippers delivering containerized exports and for receiving and releasing empty containers.